Props for a mostly decent blade design but there’s a reason that real world blades narrow into the tang behind the guard. narrowing the blade by more than about 1/4 the width near the base like that creates a weak spot where the stress of impact vibration focuses and will snap your blade eventually.
and knocking off points for accuracy thinking folding steel does anything to improve it. Folding steel only works if your using multiple grades of steel or metal. If you have a softer low carbon steel like 1040 it’s soft and can bend without stressing or snapping making it more durable- but it also makes a horrible blade because it’s so soft that it can’t hold a cutting edge. By contrast harder steel like 1090 will hold a cutting edge for years, but it will also snap and chip easily because the hardness makes it brittle. That’s where forge welding and folding comes in handy. You take two dissimilar metals, give them a decent coat of flux (usually potassium bicarbonate) heat them up to around 2000ºF and weld them by beating them together until they form a single bar. Then you keep heating and drawing out till it’s about double the length, and fold it back over. Rinse and repeat about 8-10 times (keep in mind your layers will increase exponentially 2-4-8-16-32-64-128) and you will have a piece of bar stock to forge a blade with most of the flexibility of low carbon steel, and all the edge retention of high carbon steel.
Repeatedly hammering the metal will not force out impurities. that only applies when using bloom and crucible steel and all your really forcing out is air left from the flaws with those smelting processes. The slag you see fly off hot metal when it’s hammered is just rust. Hot metal oxidizes faster on the surface which creates literal scale (also why most smiths wear gloves, 1800º-2000º flakes of rust hitting your hands bouncing everywhere is a great way to get burned bad if you don’t wear your gloves and apron. using a flux agent or getting the forge to burn hot enough to burn “clean”- meaning total combustion with no smoke in a solid fuel forge- will reduce the scale.
Yeah, the Eastern historical perspective from an amateur is showing through in the author’s work – folding steel is great when you have poor quality steel or a bunch of mixed stuff. Europeans had much better quality iron (and ergo steel) to work with, and given the Western style of the MMO you’d figure they’d have good steel.
IsaEirias
Props for a mostly decent blade design but there’s a reason that real world blades narrow into the tang behind the guard. narrowing the blade by more than about 1/4 the width near the base like that creates a weak spot where the stress of impact vibration focuses and will snap your blade eventually.
and knocking off points for accuracy thinking folding steel does anything to improve it. Folding steel only works if your using multiple grades of steel or metal. If you have a softer low carbon steel like 1040 it’s soft and can bend without stressing or snapping making it more durable- but it also makes a horrible blade because it’s so soft that it can’t hold a cutting edge. By contrast harder steel like 1090 will hold a cutting edge for years, but it will also snap and chip easily because the hardness makes it brittle. That’s where forge welding and folding comes in handy. You take two dissimilar metals, give them a decent coat of flux (usually potassium bicarbonate) heat them up to around 2000ºF and weld them by beating them together until they form a single bar. Then you keep heating and drawing out till it’s about double the length, and fold it back over. Rinse and repeat about 8-10 times (keep in mind your layers will increase exponentially 2-4-8-16-32-64-128) and you will have a piece of bar stock to forge a blade with most of the flexibility of low carbon steel, and all the edge retention of high carbon steel.
Repeatedly hammering the metal will not force out impurities. that only applies when using bloom and crucible steel and all your really forcing out is air left from the flaws with those smelting processes. The slag you see fly off hot metal when it’s hammered is just rust. Hot metal oxidizes faster on the surface which creates literal scale (also why most smiths wear gloves, 1800º-2000º flakes of rust hitting your hands bouncing everywhere is a great way to get burned bad if you don’t wear your gloves and apron. using a flux agent or getting the forge to burn hot enough to burn “clean”- meaning total combustion with no smoke in a solid fuel forge- will reduce the scale.
Berethian
Yeah, the Eastern historical perspective from an amateur is showing through in the author’s work – folding steel is great when you have poor quality steel or a bunch of mixed stuff. Europeans had much better quality iron (and ergo steel) to work with, and given the Western style of the MMO you’d figure they’d have good steel.